Committee advances SOLE permanency bill to expand supportive family options for older youth

The Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety voted to move B26-0399, the Support Opportunity Unity Legal Relationships (SOLE) Amendment Act of 2026, for print and report with leave for staff to make technical and conforming edits.

Councilmember Zachary Parker, the bill's lead sponsor, said the measure "allows for the courts to create a legal structure to empower a cohort of adults, to support, older, young people" and described the proposal as youth-led: "This is all of their work... they wrote, that they continue to have input on." The bill defines a "sole family" permanency option for youth involved with the Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA), sets family-court procedures and adjudicatory standards for creating sole-family orders, mandates confidentiality protections, and authorizes CFSA to provide subsidies to sole caregivers.

Chair Brooke Pinto said the committee intended to preserve the substance of the version marked up by the Committee on Youth Affairs, noting extensive stakeholder engagement with the Office of the Attorney General, the Children's Law Center, the DC Family and Youth Initiative, and youth with lived experience (LEX). Pinto and Parker said a similar sole-family model has been enacted in Kansas and described the SOLE bill as offering an alternative to adoption for older youth who need legal protections without full adoption. Councilmember Anita Bonds spoke in support, calling the measure "dynamite" for youth who face uncertainty aging out of care. The committee approved the print and report unanimously and concluded the markup.